Shadowdancer
by SunandShadows
Summary: Sequel companion to my earlier 'She Weeps As She Dances' because I've ever been more a 'Meg' than a 'Christine'. This is for Erik, who was always there.


**Shadowdancer  
**(A sequel to 'She Weeps As She Dances')  
Angelle M. Chandler

"_Out of the shadows another draws nearer,  
Out of the twilight steals one furtive light.  
Shadows dance pain, while the light sings despairing…"_

"_Heart speaks to heart in the depth of the darkness…"  
__-- Mercedes Lackey - "Windrider Unchained"_

I never thought to pass this way again.  
Long days, months, years have passed, blown  
as smoke, like the ashes of this once-grand palace  
to places far beyond.  
A lifetime have I lived, seeming at once endless  
and far too short a span.  
Time passes while we mortals look on, always waiting  
for the next thing to begin, fearing to live  
in the time we are allotted,  
yet mourning its passing with cheated cries  
when our hourglass runs dry.

Once I danced –  
_allegro_, _vivace_ –  
pointes whirling, arms flung  
joyously to the sky,  
breathing the music,  
living it, but never daring  
to seek the man behind.

Once I danced.

A thousand steps, a thousand times  
I let it carry me beyond the rough wooden planks  
and dusty velvet curtains,  
past the catcalls and the clang  
of the brass spittoons,  
and the rough stage door where  
the gentlemen waited  
for a glimpse or a word or a hand.

This was not my life:  
The garish makeup, heavily applied  
to affect wide eyed innocence and  
rosebud lips;  
The frilled tulle and satin, dark,  
stained with sweat;  
The delicates pointes, their unforgiving wooden blocks  
dyed black with blood  
and tears  
(for like the little mermaid, a dancer  
steps ever upon a sword's keen edge);  
The painted smile through the haze of pain.  
The music took me from all of this,  
lifted me all unknowing into a world  
that could never be.

No more.  
_His_ was the voice of the music,  
of a candle's flame in the lasting darkness,  
of hope drowned in a single tear.  
He never knew me,  
never saw me though I was always there;  
one small dancer in a crowd of dozens,  
identical, unremarkable, alone;  
one tiny moth drawn to his brilliant flame,  
as we all were.

As she was.

His music lived within us all,  
breathing life into unfeeling automatons,  
perfect little mannequins,  
marionettes without strings;  
yet it was for her that his music grew wings  
and soared;  
for her that his fingers bled and his heart  
devoured itself anew  
each night as the curtain rose.  
Her voice alone reached his ears.  
His eyes followed her as she trod this poor stage,  
turning its rough plaster walls to silver and gold,  
and she the queen over all.  
She alone gave light,  
while we, shadows every one,  
longed to fly,  
to burst free,  
to flame.

Now the music is stilled.  
Though my ears strain in this silent place,  
though my heart cries out,  
"Find me, hear me, Oh, let it live again!",  
there is only dust,  
and dying  
and despair.

Yet memory is eternal.  
Gentle as moondust,  
insubstantial as dreams.  
In my sleep,  
the sound of his music still reverberates  
within my silent breast  
as a single harpstring throbs,  
kissed ever so insistently  
by a stray and innocent breeze.

I long to shut it out,  
closing my ears to its soft and soothing strains.  
How can I hear it, pain  
made music, love  
made flesh –  
Flesh born of woman  
but barred forever from a woman's love?  
Love inspired you;  
Hope of love sustained you;  
and her love at last destroyed the man  
you should have been  
(as it does in the best and oldest of tales).

The sands run swiftly now.  
My glass is nearly done,  
and I cannot help wondering  
in the empty hours long past midnight,  
What if?  
Two simple words,  
with whole worlds held between them.  
What if..?  
Oh, if I had stretched out a timid and trembling hand,  
white in the deepening twilight cast by her smile,  
would you have seen me?  
Would you have taken it?  
And might you have also danced?

I long for peace, for forgetfulness  
and the quiet balm of nothingness.  
How can I bear it, the touch of passion  
long dead, cold with the touch of a thousand empty nights  
buried beneath cold, remorseless stone?  
Oh, Erik, unfair that you should have come to this –  
Silent, alone, and forgotten by all  
but one broken dancer,  
whose dreams you inspired,  
(all unmeaning, unknowing),  
who dared to hope  
that just once, for one brief moment,  
you might see beyond the  
garish spotlight's glow  
to the figure in shadow there –  
your dancer,  
an adagio ever unborn.

I tread the boards again,  
sparkling motes sweeping to life  
beneath my restless feet.  
I feel you here,  
all around,  
\in the sigh of the wind  
and the notes of a mourning dove's call;  
the only music that still lives beneath this  
ruined dome.  
I breathe it all, deeply, strongly:  
the dust,  
the withered tapestries,  
the shattered, decaying dreams.  
On my toes now,  
I lift up my arms,  
I raise my head,  
and I dance,  
the sun my spotlight,  
out of the shadows at last.  
My spirit rises  
and my eyes gently close,  
moving softly to the rhythm,  
to the music,  
to the everlasting music without end.

-------  
AMC  
1 June, 2007


End file.
